The Check Is In The Mail
“Have you paid your dues, Jack? Yes sir. The check is in the mail.” - Jack Burton
For the grand finale of the 2021 USPSA season, my club decided to run the Go Fast, Don’t Suck postal match. For the uninitiated, a postal match is a match where participants are essentially on the honor system to shoot a prescribed course of fire and submit their results. This particular USPSA/IPSC postal match was organized by Go Fast, Don’t Suck which, according to their webpage, is:
“a group of mediocre practical shooters that make fun of everything. We noticed that others like our sense of humor so we began spreading our nonsense around on social media. We have come into now owning a shirt design company and manufacture dry fire targets, match banners, and offer a host of other stuff in our store.”
I can confirm that unless you had a sense of humor, our match at Miami Rifle & Pistol Club most certainly would have sucked. The rain began during the Match Director’s briefing, and did not stop until we were almost through the last stage. Rain gear or not, everyone was wet by the end of the day, and all feet were muddy. But would anyone go shoot for three hours in the rain and mud if it weren’t fun?
As a night shift worker, I am typically shooting after working all night, and this match was no exception. Normally, fatigue becomes a factor as the match progresses, and I will start out strong but fade in the later stages. But this match was an exception to the rule, as the exact opposite occurred…I shot pitifully on the first stage, and improved steadily throughout the day until I shot my best run on the very last stage.
A word about stage numbering and sequencing: My club did not arrange the stages in the order they were described in the match book from GFDS. That in itself is unimportant, as USPSA matches run round-robin style, and you will not necessarily shoot the stages in order. What you will see in the video is the order in which my squad shot the stages, though they are numbered according to the original match outline. It’s a little confusing, but you’re seeing it just how I saw it.
As I mentioned, the first stage I shot was a train wreck. I’d have been much better off slowing down a tad, but I went fast…and thus sucked, to the tune of three misses and a no-shoot penalty. The next stage was slightly better, though I shot slow. It is hard to see in the video, but there were two extremely dangerous targets…mini poppers placed directly in front of a no-shoot target. A lack of precision here would be disastrous, as a missed popper would almost guarantee a painful no-shoot penalty on a stage with only 40 points available. So I took my time to insure the hits.
Next up was a longer field course, which I shot pretty well (for me), with a pretty funny exclamation point to punctuate the stage. You’ll see in the video that I ran a stage plan which had me finishing on what was basically a half-head shot. Knowing that was my last target, I took advantage of the opportunity to lean in very close and shoot from probably less than a foot. Everybody had a good laugh as I nearly blew the plastic rain cover off the target and shouted “TWO ALPHA!”
“TWO ALPHA!”
I continued to improve on the final two stages, one of which was a complete mudhole and pouring rain by the time I was called to shoot. I even stepped on one of my dropped mags as I reloaded on the move, and squished it into the mud. Fortunately, I have good shooting buddies, one of whom retrieved the mag for me and wiped it clean under his armpit. Apparently, pit sweat makes good magazine cleaner. (Thanks, Jeff!)
So now that the match is done, the results submitted, and the video edited, we can sit back and wait for the national results to be tallied. I have paid my dues, and yes sir…the check is in the mail.
Postscript- This USPSA season also turned into an experiment of sorts for me. I shoot a Ruger SR1911 in Single Stack division, and I am happy to report that tales of the unreliability of the 1911 platform is unfounded…at least in my case. I did not clean my pistol at all from March through October, and did not experience a single malfunction. In the interest of full disclosure, this is a well-worn gun which has probably 15,000 rounds through it in total. The only maintenance performed during this season was to lube it with Shooter’s Choice FP-10 prior to each of my nine matches. Dirty picture follows…
Side note: The crescent-shaped marks on my bench are where I press the heel of the mainspring housing into the bench to compress the mainspring, so that I can remove the pin to remove and disassemble the housing…so it’s not like I never disassemble and clean the gun.
